when i was about 12, my family started to move around quite a bit. before then we had always gone to church on sundays, but it wasn't a central theme for us, and i really didn't consider religion a central part of my life. then we moved five hundred miles away, leaving my friends and what i considered my life behind.

we moved in the middle of summer, so i didn't have an opportunity to try to make new friends right away. my mom, trying to help matters, found a church for us to attend, thinking rightly that there would be kids my age there. i became close friends with many of those kids, and since none of them went to my school, i only saw them at church. because of this i started going not only on sunday, but on wednesday, and i joined the bible bowl team (a fierce monthly competition based on exact memorization of a given text, for those who are unfamiliar). i was good at it. church became the only place i felt a sense of comradeship and accomplishment.

To begin my story, and to explain my usage of these words, I must start from the very beginning. My mother was raised Catholic and my father Lutheran. When they had to compromise on my religious upbringing, they decided that I would be baptized Lutheran and raised Catholic. I don't know much about how or if they attended mass when we all lived together, but I do know they were not the strict every-Sunday-to-church type of people. After they divorced, during my grade-school years, my mother put me in after-school CCD classes on Wednesdays. For non-Catholics, CCD stands for Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, which was a catechism class meant to teach children about the basics of Catholicism.

My fascination with things "divine" started at a very early age. As a young lad, brought up in a Roman Catholic country (Mozambique, under the Portuguese) and attending junior school at the Convent in the city of Beira, the idea of becoming a priest was, perhaps, my first conscious thought on religion in general.

What brought that idea about has been lost in the recesses of my mind, but I suspect that the pomp and ceremony of the liturgy, and the influence of the nuns who taught me in those formative and impressionable years, played a major role in my first career decision.

Well, here is my testimony, in case anyone has the patience to read it :-). Sorry it is so long....

I was born into Christianity, and I was brought up to "know" god existed. And I was taught that Christianity was the only way to god. My parents were very devout and active Christians -- my father even considered going into the evangelical ministry at one point. So, there's no sugar coating it, we were fundies. I tried to take my religious beliefs seriously, although as a young teen I could tell I had a problem relating with other Christian kids my age. Looking back, even at that age I had a strong aptitude for human reasoning, and so I tended to be skeptical about what I was told if I couldn’t somehow verify it empirically. To the contrary, most Christian kids just seemed to accept what they were told without question, and that made it hard for me to have anything other than superficial conversations with them, which I found rather pointless.

As I continued to learn more about god and Christianity, I started to sense that certain things about Christianity and the Bible seemed illogical and contradictory, although at 13 I wasn’t really sure how to articulate it…..I just knew things were “not right”. So I started asking questions, like why does a god described as "loving" send people to a place as horrific as hell. They were usually met with typical “I don’t know but please go away” answers like "we can't fully comprehend god", "pray for understanding", or "read the bible for your answer", etc. These answers made even less sense to me than the perceived contradictions, but since I really wanted to believe I tried to push all my doubts back into my subconscious in the hopes they would go away if I ignored them. Ignorance is bliss.

I was born into the Jehovah’s Witness’s organization and had mind control techniques used on me from a very young age. I was taught that jojo (Jehovah) knew what I was thinking and If I thought any bad thoughts, I basically wasn’t worthy of surviving Armageddon and living forever in a paradise. That’s a big load of guilt for a young child to bear. I used to test god and think "bad" thoughts and swear in my head waiting to get some reaction but I never did.

I used to sleepwalk and talk every night and sometimes as a 5 or 6 year old I would be swearing blue murder in my sleep which my mother didn’t like .However I was continuously dragged to 5 meetings a week for more conditioning. As I got older every attempt at being an individual was thwarted and I soon succumbed and got that glazed dopey look that all jolly jojo's have.

I noticed several contributors here using names from water ship down and this interested me as this book, and the film had a part in my becoming an atheist. At school we were made to pray everyday, my earliest memories were of everyone around me kneeling with their hand together and me with my hands in a paw like configuration praying instead to Frith, the sun deity worshiped by all rabbits that was invented by Richard Adams. I did this because in the film a brilliantly animated creation myth is portrayed in aboriginal art style, and to my very young mind was more powerful and moving, and seeming made more sense than the one in the bible. I understood this was fiction, but I looked at the people who believed the Christian teachings and felt that if they could have their god why couldn’t I?

Tim Simmons, one of the regular contributors to this site, has created a test, just for ExChristian.Net.

I find it amazing as once again I consider the level of ignorance people can be content to possess when it comes to a religion they base their lives on. One would think that as supposedly important as Christianity is to those who follow it would be compelled by a hunger to know all their is to know about its origins.

Of course the usual cop-out is something along the lines of," We follow Jesus, not a religion."

Well, cop-out all you want, but Christianity is a religion, and after you take your score, post your results in the comments section. You may be surprised!

23 years of going to Church up to 3 times on a Sunday in the early years. I can't believe how I fell for it (nor does my wife who did that as well). Both our parents are fairly strict Christians although they have loosened up somewhat over the last few years.

I'm not going to bore anyone with the story of how i became a xian. I was a little kid and that was that. there were several things that pushed me (and I really mean pushed, because i was not eager to go) into unbelief.

1) knowing people in other religions whose faith systems gave them what they needed & wanted. I had several mormon friends before i moved and they were great women. i admired them because of their values, their lifestyles and their wisdom. it always amazed me that they could be silly enough to believe in the book of mormon, etc., but they depended on those books to give them guidance and counsel and those books did. they turned to the teachings of their church in times of trouble and when tragedy struck and it helped them through. yet regular xianity says they are going to hell for being heretics. and, of course, mormons do not believe that non-mormons enjoy the highest level of heaven...

I was raised in a christian family and went to church every Sunday. My family is more devout than most i would say. I went throught all the motions and said all the right things but i was always very skeptical. Science was always of much greater intersest to me even as a young child. I never really pondered my mortality until around 13 or 14 and started to openly denounce god around people who werent family and didnt know them. I was so passionate about science and i thought it had all the answers. At 17 while going to prep school(i lived in a dorm) to aid me in becoming a scientist i had my fill of classes and decided to go back home to a normal school. 4 things i believe made me search for god.

From birth on I was taken to church. I had no idea there was a different way of living. Forced to be separate from non-believers, I was unaware of other beliefs and life styles. I had been blindfolded for 48 years.

I remember being in the church I'd been attending all my life, guitars were playing, singers were singing their hearts out, and a faint incling of weak handclapping to the beat was coming from the back pew. I looked around at the faces. Trance like, glassy eyed zombies, staring at their shoes. Who were these people? They all looked alike with their same vague expressions. I had the feeling that if one of them stood up and left the service, all the rest would follow blindly behind with no thought as to what they were doing.

I was going to save this until Sunday but then I started thinking - "Gee, this could be fun to discuss in church, after church at brunch - maybe Friday night during family fun time. . . ." After all, the Bible is the infallible, divinely-inspired word of God, right? The entire Christian religion is based on the resurrection of the Christ - so we know that part of the Good Book will be very accurate! The very crux of the argument for Christianity being the one true religion is that it is the only religion in which the Saviour actually rose from the dead to fulfill prophecy- so let's have a little fun:

Father Dan's Easter Quiz:

1. Who first came to the tomb on Sunday morning?a. one woman (John 20:1)b. two women (Matt. 28:1)c. three women (Mark 16:1)d. more than three women (Luke 23:55-56; 24:1,10)

My last fix was in 1994. I was 18 years old. Y'know what? I'll come back to that, Let's start from the beginning. It was 1992. I was 16 years old. And just like any other 16 year old, I was into to girls, big time. So since I had practically grown up in the church I knew that this where the girls were. But after about a month or so, I actually started to enjoy going there. It wasnt about the girls, it wasn't about the free meal and the annual Labor Day picnics after church (although that was a plus, and the picnics were the bomb!!! LOL), it wasn't even about the holy ghost. What I enjoyed was the fellowship. See, Revival Tabernacle is a church where the congregation was made up of people of all walks of life. Doctors, Lawyers, Rich People, Poor people, Black, or White. There has even been instances where police officers and the very criminals that they arrested stood hand in hand as brothers or sisters. I found this to be fascinating. Little did I know that it was all a big act.

Wow! Where do I even start? I want to try to make this as short as possible if I can.

Ok, I was born on St. Thomas United States Virgin Islands and raised 150 miles southeast on an island known as St. Kitts (Christopher). From the time I knew myself, I was going to church because I went to St. Kitts when I was 6 months old.

My grandmother raised me Catholic and you guys have got to realize that 30 year ago, the Caribbean was a bastion of Christianity of all types of faith. Slavery's legacy of learning the religion of the slavemaster for 400 years was deeply entrenched. I don't even remember Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Taoists, Wiccans or Hindus in the community much less the island. You were either Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, Moravian, Baptist or Pentecostal. In fact, considering this was back in the mid to late 60s, we had no television at the time and all my grandmother did was have her radio locked on a Christian station 24/7/365. The radio was NEVER off so I was deeply indoctrinated with Christianity. I knew every Gospel program theme song from the Haven of Rest to R. W Schubach and the likes. I did not even know what a secular song was. I knew Bible stories like I now know sports teams.

I have read several of the testimonies on this site and I see so much of my our conversion in them. I will try to explain what took place in my life. I was born into a very religious family and decided to become a Xian when I was 8 years old. I went to Sunday School and the like and heard all the great Bible stories. I bought it all of course hook line and sinker. And why wouldn't I, my parents wouldn't deceive me. As I grew older I began to take my beliefs very seriously. I studied the Bible very intently. I lived the life of a Xian (no drugs, no sex, no liquor, no swearing). When I graduated High School I joined the USAF. Suddenly I found myself in a whole different world. I was a thousand miles away from my home, my family and my friends. So I went to the only place where I knew I would be comfortable, the church. I joined the biggest Baptist church in town. The people in the church were impressed with both my knowledge of the bible and my ability to teach and preach. I began to teach the college age sunday school class. This is where I met the woman who would be my wife. While we were dating I was licensed as a minister by that church. I got married and took a job as a youth minister.

I first became interested in religion when I was 15 because my parents felt the need for something more to their lives, so they dragged me along. When I finally felt the need to "accept Jesus into my life", it was the most amazingly liberating feeling I ever experienced in my life. I loved the sense of structure, warmth and family unity that I felt within the church. That, I felt, I had been missing my entire life. So, instead of dealing with life in my real home, God became my father and the church my extended family.

I am African-American. These words alone bring many things to mind. The first is usually skin color. The second is a combination of characteristics, location, and class that date back centuries whether true or not. The last is the most obvious if observed and that is that 99.5% are religious. Well, with that said, guess which one is where my past began? Christianity. And of course, it all starts with grandmothers or prior in ancestry. I was born into the game of religion. In christianity, no matter what denomination you were in, children are considered the “future of the interest group.” Each Sunday felt like Monday through Friday except for the business/semiformal attire. Like every other African-American child, I was torn out of bed each Sunday, dressed, and went by force to a place with my parents that I was never given an explanation about, understood, nor exactly wanted be at unless something fun was going to happen.

Pitchu, one of the active members of the open forums, has decided to bestow on ExChristian.Net, as well as those involved with it, a huge compliment.

As some of you may already know, Pitchu is an accomplished playwright. What you may not know is that she desires to devote some of her creative talents and energies toward writing a musical stage presentation illustrating the challenges faced by those who leave Christianity. It will be based on stories found right here at ExChristian.Net.

I guess now is as good a time as any to submit this. It takes a certain amount of courage and I hope there are individuals here that can relate, and that there are ones that might read this that will be helped and encouraged.

I was a Christian all my life, since I can remember. I grew up Catholic. There was never any reason for me to think there was not God, that’s all I ever knew. Even when I got older and had an episode where I was involved in Scientology, I still thought there was God, I had no reason not to, and even though I was in that cult, they encouraged anyone who was still going to church to keep going, regardless of what it was, so that never had any effect on me changing my mind. It actually had more of a reinforcing effect because while I was involved in the Church of Scientology I had what I thought at the time was an “out of body” experience. It terrified me, although I did get a lot of attention from the other “church” members at the time. They encouraged delusions of all kinds and considered the “experience” beneficial as it was supposed to somehow be indicative of getting closer to a “clear mind.” This experience happened due to stress and duress and I now know that it was a psychological reaction to blatant mental abuse I was going through at the time. It is where a victim can’t handle what’s happening at the moment so the person shuts his or her mind down and escapes to “another place” in the mind. This is a dark place, much like when an alcoholic has a blackout. I suppose because I was inclined towards and constantly exposed to spirituality I allowed myself to be open to mystical types of occurrences, and I had them. I had them in Scientology. I had them while participating in New Age types of things, and I of course, had them in Christianity. I was what most would call a “seeker”, and my lifelong pursuit seems to always have been a search for truth. As I got older I went from sect to sect of Christianity looking for where I fit. I went from Catholic to Assembly of God, to Methodist, to Lutheran, and when I met my soon to be ex-husband – he was involved in what would be referred to now as “New Age” – he also believed in ET’s and well, what can I say, I was a sucker for such things. What is it I’ve read here about, “If you’ll believe the bible, then you’ll believe anything.” It goes something like that anyway. Well, point made.

It is time I told my story, as I have roamed this site for months and have posted for several weeks. Some of the testimonies I have read have been quite moving. My heart goes out to those who have lost friends and family or otherwise suffered for abandoning Christianity and embracing reason. My own deconversion was relatively painless, probably owing to the weakness of my indoctrination. My parents were and are rather lukewarm Christians; I suppose their own indoctrination was less than severe. I know my maternal grandfather became quite devout upon quitting alcohol, but that was after my mother moved out and married. God and religion were not staples of conversation in my childhood home, but we all dressed up nicely and went to church on Sundays.I think my parents felt obligated to impart to their children a moral system, if nothing else. In that respect, they succeeded.

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